Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Much blather about how US car companies can't make economical autos with good gas mileage. This is a lie. The problem is that they neither make or sell them in the US. The picture to the right is the new Ford Fiesta (UK). Diesel versions get over 60 mpg, there is even a model with a claimed 76 mpg (ok bunnies, Eli knows that is imperial gallons so in US speak that is 48 and 61 mpg. Gas versions get between 40 and 35 mpg US. Eli went all over town trying to get a Euro version of the Fiesta a year ago and generally got laughed at. The US Fiesta was equivalent to the ten years ago UK version, only not so good and the fittings were cheap. It was a car they had to offer to maintain fleet mileage limits but didn't want to sell.

GM owns Opel in Germany and several other places, as well as Vauxhall in the UK. The Opel Astra gets 5.4 l/100 km to 9.3 depending on the motor version (in US speak 44 mpg to 26 mpg US), not so good, but a lot better than is on offer in the US.

Other examples of US companies manufacturing useful autos with good mileage welcome in the comments

Would be interesting to know where exactly European Fords or GM Opels are designed.

Some Astras have proven to be quite reliable actually too, though the first models were horrible.

You can get some used Chrysler Neons here for a pittance. American cars fare really badly in the annual reliability charts. Mercedes Benz has suffered there too in the last years. Mazda and Toyota are doing quite well. Ford, not very well. The Focus is nice to drive though, if you like a snappy feel.

On the matter of conversion factors again. I follow Eli's fl. oz. argument (there is method in the 0.8 arrival -- but have not looked into it to find why the discrepancy), but my CRC (19th edn) Standard Mathematical Tables lists the conversion factor for gallon (US) to gallon (British) as 0.832675.

Small beer anyway, unless you're running on vapour and more than 2 miles from a filling station.

the imperial oz is different. Shudda known (from the wikipedia/gallon)

The gallons in current use are subdivided into eight pints or four quarts. Pints are further subdivided into fluid ounces and liquid gallons are also subdivided into 32 gills, i.e. a quarter of a pint. The sub-units of pint and fluid ounce, despite having the same name in both Imperial and U.S. units, differ in volume and are therefore not interchangeable. The principal difference is that the Imperial pint contains 20 Imperial fluid ounces, whereas the U.S. pint contains 16 U.S. fluid ounces. A U.S. fluid ounce is approximately 4% bigger than an Imperial fluid ounce and therefore they are often used interchangeably, whereas U.S. and Imperial pints and gallons are sufficiently different that they should not be used interchangeably, although they often are.

"The gallons in current use are subdivided into eight pints or four quarts. Pints are further subdivided into fluid ounces...despite having the same name in both Imperial and U.S. units, differ in volume and are therefore not interchangeable"

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Eli Rabett

Eli Rabett, a not quite failed professorial techno-bunny who finally handed in the keys and retired from his wanna be research university. The students continue to be naive but great people and the administrators continue to vary day-to-day between homicidal and delusional without Eli's help. Eli notices from recent political developments that this behavior is not limited to administrators. His colleagues retain their curious inability to see the holes that they dig for themselves. Prof. Rabett is thankful that they, or at least some of them occasionally heeded his pointing out the implications of the various enthusiasms that rattle around the department and school. Ms. Rabett is thankful that Prof. Rabett occasionally heeds her pointing out that he is nuts.